(Clearwisdom.net) Mr. Gai Guangqi, 60, is a Falun Gong practitioner from Tananbo Village, Jiang Township of Laiyang City, Shandong Province. After starting to practice Falun Gong in 1997, Mr. Gai became very healthy, had a happy family life, and operated a prosperous business. He is widely recognized as a good person.

After July 1999, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to persecute Falun Gong, Mr. Gai Guangqi went to Beijing four times to appeal for justice. He has been illegally arrested and detained in detention centers four times; subjected to forced labor and taken to a brainwashing center twice; and his home has been searched three times, with valuable personal property being confiscated. In 2000 local government officials in Fengzi Township and local police officers extorted 5,000 yuan from him.

Subjected to two years of forced labor

At the end of October 2000, Mr. Gai went to the city to pick up supplies. He was intercepted on the way by police officers from the Fengzi Township Police Station and Laiyang City's 610 Office. When they arrested him, they searched the cargo in his truck, but didn't find any "evidence" to use to justify the arrest. When Mr. Gai questioned them as to why he was being arrested, Zhang Shaohua, head of the Township Police Station, took out a stack of informational materials about Falun Gong and the persecution, which he had just been planted, to use as evidence.

Mr. Gai was taken to the Laiyang Detention Center that night. Less than a week later, he and two other practitioners were secretly transferred to Wangcun Forced Labor Camp in Zibo City around midnight on November 3, 2000. There, he was sent to the labor camp clinic for a medical exam. When he refused to give a blood sample, four or five officers held him down on the table in order to take his blood.

Shocked with electric rods after refusing to give up Falun Gong

On the day Mr. Gai arrived at the forced labor camp, he was not given any food or water in the morning and was forced to stand straight from afternoon to midnight. Newcomers to the labor camp were required to write a guarantee statement, declaring they would not study or practice or promote Falun Gong. Mr. Gai was forced to stand because he refused to write such a statement. They kept asking him, "Do you want to write the statement?" He kept refusing. When it was bed time, a guard took Mr. Gai and another practitioner named Sui to the fourth floor and cuffed them to a metal door. The next morning, a guard came and ordered him again to write the statement, but he still refused. Then he was taken to an empty room where the windows and the door were covered with cloth, and he was stripped of his clothes. In the room were seven or eight guards, a doctor, and a head of the division named Zhou, who held three or four different types of electric rods in his hands. These rods emitted blue light at their tips. Mr. Gai was handcuffed to a stake on the floor, with both hands behind his back. Several electric rods were used at the same time to shock his head, face, neck, chest, legs, stomach, and private parts.

After a short while, smoke filled the room and the sounds of Mr. Gai being shocked were dreadful. After a while, a voice suddenly shouted, "Stop! Stop!" It was the doctor. Then two people in long white gowns came to check him with stethoscopes, while the guards took a break. They smoked and drank while they kept yelling at Mr. Gai.

The guards then continued the same torture, and took another four or five-minute break, while the doctor checked the victim. They repeatedly tortured him four or five times, but Mr. Gai still refused to write the statement.

While Mr. Gai was dripping wet with trembling muscles and breathless, a guard with the surname Feng yelled at him, "Gai Guangqi, let me tell you the facts. You seem tough, but you will have two years here. Let's see how long you can hold out and refuse to write the statement. We will do nothing for two years but shock you every day for two hours. Have another round now!"

Mr. Gui asked the head, Zhou, "Isn't it the Party's policy--no forced interrogation and no torture?" Zhou answered, "This is not a forced interrogation. This is called 'intensifying education'." Mr. Gui said, "You are lying." Other guards immediately said, "You can tell a lie, too. You can just write the statement, declaring not to study or to practice Falun Gong in this place. We don't care what you do after you get out." Mr. Gui refused to give in. After being released from Wangcun Forced Labor Camp, Mr. Gui continued to practice Falun Gong as he did before.

Subjected to forced labor and torture again until in critical condition

Four days before the opening of the Beijing Olympics, on the morning of August 4, 2008, Mr. Gai was illegally arrested and taken to the Laiyang Detention Center. On the way to the detention center, he was handcuffed so tightly that the handcuffs cut into his flesh.

In the detention center, he was tortured with the death bed for three days and then sentenced to one and a half years of forced labor. He was again sent to Wangcun Forced Labor Camp in Zibo City. Half a year later, he was diagnosed with high blood pressure of over 200 and late term cerebral arteriosclerosis. He often felt dizzy, nauseated, and had headaches and chest pains. His condidtion was critical danger. Labor camp officials were afraid to be held responsible in case he died and wanted to return him to the Laiyang Police Department. After no response from the local police, they allowed Mr. Gai's family members to take him home. On January 12, 2009, Mr. Gai, in critical condition, was taken home.